Hello ... I have a question Re: connecting to work emails remotely. I am fairly computer illeterate so excuse my lack of terminology in explaining things.

A couple of basic facts.

Our work server is a linux machine and our work laptops/desktops run windows.
We connect to our server through a LAN setup.
We access our IMAP emails through Outlook.
We have "openwebmail" to access our emails remotely through web access (but I find this limiting and I would prefer the below situation).

My question is ... Can I use MS Outlook remotely to access my work IMAP email linux server?

That depends on the network configuration; specifically, whether the server can be reached via IMAP
from outside the work LAN. If it can, then the answer is yes.

We use a contract IT person to administer our work server.

Can he change these network configurations to allow for external connections? If so, can you please tell me what I should be telling him to point him in the right direction.

Thanks so much.

just tell him that you want to use outlook from home.

Thank you Berhanie.

Our IT administrator is not a linux expert and he is stumbling his way around our server (which was setup by a more experienced linux IT administrator but who is no longer available).

He is willing to learn as I have told him we are not moving our work server back to a windows box.

Can you give me something a bit more direct so that I can point him in the right direction.

THANKS heaps.

ok. something like this would be good. here, i'm assuming that your IMAP server
sits on the company LAN, and so does not have a public IP address.

1. configure your imap server to also use imaps (secure imap: tcp port 993), if it's not already.
this port is the encrypted counterpart to the clear-text imap port 143, and makes sure that
data remains private between the client and the server.
note: you can also achieve encrypted connections on port 143 using the STARTTLS command,
but i think that some microsoft mail clients are not capable of this yet, hence we use port
993.

2. at this point, your admin should configure an outlook client on the company LAN to connect
to your IMAP server via port 993 to test the server's config. there's no point in going to step 3
until you're sure this works.

3. configure the company router to redirect packets incoming to port tcp port 993 of one of your
external IP addresses (probably the same ip address that you use for web mail) to go to the internal
ip address of IMAP server, instead.

4. ask your admin to configure your home outlook to connect to the imap server using port 993.

THANK YOU so much.

I will print your instructions and give it to him.

MUCH appreciated. I will let you know how it works out.

ok. good luck, lewis101.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you for the help ... The IT guy got it working with your assistance as above. And now it all works. THANK YOU.

ah, very good. thank you for reporting back. reading this thread again, i see that i should have mentioned something about setting up the smtp side of things, but it looks like you solved everything.